Dymocks Tutoring tells parents to use ChatGPT or Gemini, then shuts down
Dymocks Tutoring and Talent 100, an Australian tutoring company operating five centres across Sydney, is closing at the end of the week. In telling its customers, the company said that technology has made its service obsolete and advised parents to invest in Gemini or ChatGPT rather than pay for human tutors to give their children an academic edge. The closure comes as students increasingly turn to artificial intelligence for exam preparation and immediate study feedback, a shift the company itself pointed to as the reason its business no longer makes sense to keep running.
Key facts
- Dymocks Tutoring and Talent 100, which runs five centres across Sydney, will close at the end of the week.
- The company told parents to invest in Gemini or ChatGPT instead of paying for human tutors.
- It said technology has rendered its tutoring service obsolete.
- The company points to students increasingly using AI for exam preparation and immediate study feedback as the driver of the shift.
Why it matters
It is a rare case of a services business publicly telling its own customers to replace it with AI, rather than simply losing market share quietly. A tutoring company built on one-to-one human instruction is closing and directing parents toward general-purpose chatbots as the substitute, which is a direct, self-declared statement that AI tools have eaten into demand for its core offering.
Who it affects
Parents and students in Sydney who used Dymocks Tutoring and Talent 100's five centres, and more broadly the tutoring and exam-prep industry, which now has a concrete example of a competitor citing AI as the reason it could not continue.
How to use it
The company's own advice to former customers is to use free or low-cost AI tools such as Gemini or ChatGPT for exam preparation and study feedback in place of paid human tutoring sessions.
How solid is it
The closure and the company's own statement to customers are reported directly, but the source available for this account is a short excerpt of the original article; the full piece was not accessible, so details such as an exact closure date, company representatives, or financial figures are not available.
Risks and caveats
This is one company's decision and framing, not an industry-wide data point; it does not establish how widespread the substitution of AI for paid tutoring is, nor does it address whether AI tools actually match the academic outcomes of human tutoring.